No, sorry, that’s not a euphemism. This post is literally about walking the dog. It’s a new thing for me. For two and a half years, I was lucky enough to have a yard and not have to walk the dog, but now I have no yard and no choice. Yay me.

This is where the dog is supposed to do her business in front of my building:

It should be a simple matter of walking out the front door, squatting and going. It is never that simple.

First, she has to sniff the area pictured above. Then she pulls me across the street (starting and end point marked with an X). A lot of dogs seem to do their business across the street. Fine. It’s only across the street. I think we can handle that. She might squat along the way. Maybe. Then she drags me around the corner, across the street the other way, across the street again, back this way and then over here, leaving tiny pees (the little yellow circles) wherever. Eventually, almost always in the same area, she will finally poop (the big brown circle):

In a city block’s worth of space, we manage to walk at least a half a mile. And that’s the route without any distractions. If there are dogs or cars or people or anything that moves, you can expect even more diversions from that route.

This morning, a woman walked down the other side of the street with a little fluffy white dog. At the same time, a man jogged down the street with a yellow lab. This was my dog’s reaction:

“Really? You’re just going to sit here?” That’s exactly what she did until both dogs were out of sight. And then we continued on the ridiculous dotted line through the neighborhood.

Last night, I took her out before bedtime and she barked at a little old lady walking down the sidewalk:

It was a little old lady. She posed no threat at all, but my dog broke out the big girl bark just for her. If this was one of those training courses where the targets pop out and you have to decide in a split second if it’s a threat, my dog would have failed.

Most people in my neighborhood have little fluffy white dogs, like so:

For whatever reason, 8 out of 10 dogs in my neighborhood look exactly like that. Another 1 in 10 looks like that only in a different color:

They’re all essentially the same dog. Sometimes, I think it is the same dog traveling to different homes through portals, but then I see more than one of them at the same time. Whenever my dog runs into one of these fluffy white dogs, this is her reaction:

When little fluffy white dog runs into my dog, this is its reaction:

Little fluffy white dog hates my dog. Always. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s a size thing. Maybe it’s because my dog is neither white nor fluffy. Perhaps little fluffy white dogs have a secret club where they plot against dogs that are not small, white or fluffy. In any event, when I see a little fluffy white dog coming, I know there will be trouble.

Little fluffy white dog’s owner doesn’t like me and my dog either. Little fluffy white dog’s owner will walk across the street and practically hide behind a tree when they see me and my vicious beast:

If little fluffy white dog’s owner decides not to run, they will pick up little fluffy white dog in their arms and scuttle by as if I’m making threats and waving a gun around.

On the rare occasion that little fluffy white dog is actually allowed to interact with my vicious killer, this will be my dog’s reaction:

Little fluffy white dog will respond like so:

Little fluffy white dog hates my dog. My dog doesn’t mind. She doesn’t seem to realize or care that 9 out of 10 dogs and dog owners in the neighborhood don’t want anything to do with her.

Ah, the joys of dog ownership and not having a yard.